


i said i love you (and that's forever)

by fleurmatisse



Series: west virginia, mountain mama [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: (don't worry she's fine), 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Bliss, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, animal injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-13 17:58:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20586674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurmatisse/pseuds/fleurmatisse
Summary: “Oh come on,” Dean replies around a laugh. He leans on Castiel’s knee, grinning up at him. “You love my jokes.”Castiel starts picking at the sunflower in his hands again, and if it’s to avoid looking Dean in the eye when he says, “I loveyou,” well. Naomi is dead, so no one will be reading his mind to know that for sure.aka 5 (ish) times Cas says I love you and one time Dean says it back





	i said i love you (and that's forever)

**Author's Note:**

> part 3 contains discussion of an animal injury, but don't worry she's fine   
this is part 5 of the west virginia mountain mama series but you probably don't have to read the rest if you just accept this is an au

**1**

Castiel is startled out of his focus by a hand landing on the back of his neck and tipping him to the left. 

“You know,” Dean says, amused as he plants a kiss on the side of Castiel’s head, his usual greeting when he gets home, “I made a picnic table because there are benches attached.” 

Castiel watches him sit on one such bench from his place on the tabletop and shrugs. “Maurice was trying to eat all the seeds from my lap.”

“I think the solution there is to not let the dog in your lap,” Dean says. 

“But if I sit up here, he can’t reach my lap,” Castiel replies. Dean shakes his head, smiling, and Castiel hands him a sunflower head. “What time is it?”

“Quarter to five,” Dean says, breaking the sunflower in half over the table by Castiel’s left knee. For a few minutes, the only sounds are the clink of seeds landing in the old pie plates Castiel got from Linda and the noise of what Dean loves calling  _ the farm. _ Castiel has almost lost himself to the task of pulling seeds again when Dean says, “You feel like eating today? I was thinking burgers.”

“I always feel like eating your burgers,” Castiel says, solemn as a vow to make Dean laugh. It works.

“Well good, ‘cause Jackson gave me extra ground beef for fixing his and Jenny’s windows,” Dean says. He shakes his head again. “I tried to get him to give me what I was paying for, and I think he just added more when I wasn’t looking.”

Castiel smiles. Dean has made friends with, or at least made a good impression on, pretty much everyone in Bubbling Springs, and he’s only been living here for a month. It helps that he can figure out how to fix pretty much anything and offers to help anyone as long as they’re nice to Castiel, too.

“He likes you,” Castiel says, hearing the way his own voice fills with fondness. 

“Yeah, well,” Dean says, shoulders climbing the way they do when he’s getting flustered. “You should probably be jealous, I mean, another guy giving me free meat.”

Castiel unfolds his legs to push him away with a bare foot. “Terrible,” he says in the face of Dean’s cackling. 

“Oh come on,” Dean replies around a laugh, grabbing his calf to force his foot down to the bench. He leans on Castiel’s knee, grinning up at him. “You love my jokes.”

Castiel starts picking at the sunflower in his hands again, and if it’s to avoid looking Dean in the eye when he says, “I love  _ you _ ,” well. Naomi is dead, so no one will be reading his mind to know that for sure. He catches Dean’s grin faltering in his periphery, his hands tightening briefly over Castiel’s knee. “Your jokes, on the other hand, leave something to be desired.”

Dean is quiet for a moment, and then he clears his throat. “I’m gonna get started on dinner,” he says.

“Don’t give anything to Hund,” Castiel reminds him, because Hund has been getting more sensitive to human food lately and he doesn’t want to be letting him in and out all night. 

“Right,” Dean says. He gets up from the table and starts to walk inside. Castiel closes his eyes for a second—he wasn’t expecting Dean to say it back, Heaven knows it took Castiel long enough to echo it back to Hilde—but something, he thinks, would have been nice. He straightens and picks up the sunflower Dean abandoned, brushing the seeds into a pile on the table, and then Dean is kneeling on the bench and grabbing his face. Castiel lets himself be turned, meeting Dean’s kiss halfway, until he’s at risk of falling off the table. He steadies himself with a hold on Dean’s shoulders. 

Dean pulls away just to kiss him again, soft and sweet. Castiel feels him sigh and opens his eyes to look at him, blurry this close. His eyebrows are pinched, eyes still closed, but he smiles when he looks at Castiel and kisses him one more time before he straightens. That was something. 

“We still have those pickles from Mia, don’t we?” Dean asks.

“I wouldn’t have eaten them,” Castiel replies. “Do you want me to start the grill?”

“I’ll get it in a minute,” Dean says. “I think you’re expected elsewhere.”

He gestures to the goats’ portion of the barn, and Castiel follows the gesture to see Yogurt and Theodore watching him. Yogurt yells when she sees Castiel looking. Castiel rolls his eyes. There’s still time before  _ their _ dinner time, but he slides off the table anyway, and he and Dean go their separate ways. 

(**2**

“Nobody’s said that to me before,” Dean mumbles later that night, half asleep with his face pressed in Castiel’s shoulder. “Except my mom.”

“Your mother told you the benefits of chicken manure?” Castiel asks, because he’s been trying to get Dean to agree to get the chicks from the Tractor Supply in Romney for the last five minutes. It’s mostly a joke—the chicks and the question. 

Dean digs a knuckle into Castiel’s side. “Smartass.” He turns his head to frown at Castiel. “That you, you know. Don’t hate me, or whatever.”

Castiel meets Dean’s eyes this time. “That I love you,” he says. The pinch between Dean’s eyebrows returns. Castiel presses a thumb to it. “I’ll stop saying it if it makes you uncomfortable.”

Dean takes Castiel’s hand away from his face, kisses his palm, and turns his head so his expression is hidden again. His voice comes out too muffled for Castiel to understand.

“I couldn’t hear that,” Castiel says. 

Dean lifts his head slightly. “I want you to say it. I just—I can’t—”

“I just wanted to tell you,” Castiel says. “I didn’t expect to hear it back.”

Dean frowns at him, looking for a lie, and when he settles again, his arm tightens across Castiel’s ribs. He doesn’t fall asleep for a long time.)

**3**

Athena gets hurt. Castiel doesn’t know what, exactly, happened, only that he went in to feed the goats in the morning and found Athena licking blood away from her leg, blood that just kept coming. Dean calls Jeffrey to warn him that Castiel is on his way to the office and can he please meet them there, it’s an emergency. Castiel barely hears it over the rushing in his ears as he gathers Athena carefully in his arms and gets her into the truck. She’s too focused on the wound to be upset at leaving the goats. It’s almost a blessing.

“You’re okay to drive, right?” Dean says, holding the truck door open after Castiel’s climbed inside.

“Fine,” Castiel says, a tell, and Dean shuts the door anyway.

The cut needs stitches. Castiel calls Dean once Jeffrey has assured him  _ it will heal, Athena will be okay, you should wait in my office. _ Dean sounds as relieved as Castiel feels. He’s cancelled his plans to stay with the animals at home so Castiel doesn’t have to drive himself crazy over them, too. 

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Dean says when they get home, Athena bandaged and wearing a cone, Castiel exhausted enough to sleep or to cry. He’s already separated the other dogs so they can’t bother Athena while she’s recovering, at least for the first couple of days. Castiel is leaning toward crying when he sees Athena’s pain-medicine-induced daze. “You should get some rest.”

Castiel nods and doesn’t move from his spot in front of Athena’s bed until Dean maneuvers him to the couch and sits both of them down. He drapes an arm over Castiel’s shoulders, and Castiel leans into him.

“I love you,” he says, catching Dean’s hand.

“I know,” Dean says, and Castiel knows that’s a reference, but he’s too tired to make the connection. He falls asleep on Dean’s shoulder and wakes up still under his arm and Athena looks less drugged and more annoyed and he’s so glad to see it he still ends up crying, but just a little.

**4 (and 5 and 6, etc, etc)**

“I love you,” Cas says, when Dean builds them a chicken coop on the condition he can name one of the chicks Foghorn Leghorn.

“Love you,” he says when they’re on the phone, even if he’ll see Dean after the ten minutes it takes to drive home. 

“I love you,” he breathes when Dean kisses the sigil scarred into his chest.

“I love you,” he says, until it stops making his stomach swoop with nerves, until the wrinkle between Dean’s brows turns into a smile so lovely Castiel has to kiss him.

**+1**

Dean gets invited to a cookout at Jackson and Jenny’s. It’s a blessedly cool day, the usual humidity washed out by rain the night before, and Castiel has never been around so many people without anyone trying to kill him. Dean knows this and always circles back to wherever Castiel has paused amidst the chaos, makes him try the ribs Jackson smoked for hours and hours, brings him cans of soda mostly to hold until he comes back and drinks them himself.

Castiel makes friends with Mia and her girlfriend, Sylvie, whose cabinets Dean helped install a week after he moved to Bubbling Springs. They’re a little loud, a little strange, and Castiel finds himself laughing with them about nothing in particular. Dean grins at them from across the yard and almost gets hit with a stray croquet ball for his troubles.

The cookout continues through sunset. Castiel steps away to call Linda, who’s been beast-sitting for him, and Dean finds him before he gets back to the group, wraps his arms around Castiel’s waist and kisses him like they’ve got all the time in the world. Castiel hums into the kiss, smiles when Dean presses closer, and keeps his eyes closed as Dean trails kisses across his jaw, behind his ear. 

“I love you,” Dean mumbles into the crook of his neck. 

Castiel runs his fingers through Dean’s hair, ruining the careful styling, and laughs when Dean pulls back to look annoyed. “I love you, too,” he says.

“Asshole,” Dean mutters, but it doesn’t stop him from kissing Castiel again. Unsurprisingly, Castiel loves him for it.

**Author's Note:**

> started writing this because i thought cas would like harvesting sunflower seeds and it turned into the sappiest thing i've ever written. you never know where the day will take you.   
title is from just the way you are by billy joel because if i'm writing sap, i'm going all in babey


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